🔖 The ethos of a people... we may say, constitutes the atmosphere in which the best members of a race habitually live...
-from "The Virtues"
Offered as a textbook for university students and drawing from both classical and modern schools of philosophical thought-from Aristotle and the Bible to Mill, Hume, and Kant-this comprehensive 1901 overview of the universe of ethical thought is still a valuable resource today. The fascinating discussions within explore:
. the nature of ethics
. the art of conduct
. ethics and the physical sciences
. ethics and economics
. psychological hedonism
. the true sense of freedom
. the origin of conscience
. the moral connoisseur
. the general problem of authority
. the social universe
. theories of punishment
. morality and religion
. and more.
A book to dip into at random or to read in-depth, this is as fresh and original today as it was a century ago.
British philosopher JOHN STUART MACKENZIE (1860-1935) was professor of logic and philosophy at the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, and a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.